The main text of Alexander MacDonald's book ends thus:

"At the beginning of this year [1946] I had a week of glorious fishing in the River Tolten at Villarrica [Chile]. As I went down that river my thoughts reverted constantly to the year 1936 when Ian and I fished the same stretches together. What a beautiful river that is! How peaceful! That was the sort of thing Ian loved and how he hated war. And when I think of what is happening in the world today, of the difficulties with Russia, of all the troubles, it makes me wonder if the sacrifice of so many magnificent young lives was to any purpose. When I think of the atomic bomb, I shudder! What is going to be the end of it all?

               They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old

               Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn:

               At the going down of the sun and in the morning

               We will remember them.[1]

 Yes, we will always remember Ian, with great pride even if our hearts are broken."

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[1] From Robert Laurence Binyon’s poem ‘For the Fallen’ composed in 1914 in honour of the casualties of the British Expeditionary Force at the Battle of Mons and the first Battle of the Marne. It was first published in The Times in September 1914, and these lines are read every year at Remembrance Sunday services.

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The book was written by Ian MacDonald's father Alexander MacDonald CBE (1894-1954) in 1945-6, and edited and first published in 2017 by Alexander's grandson and Ian's nephew, Ian Ruxton. It is available from amazon, lulu.com and as a free-to-download PDF from the Kyutacar academic repository in Japan. It was also mentioned in the Chronicle of the Black Watch called The Red Hackle (No. 181, May 2018, Book Reviews, p. 12). 
 

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Undated letter from Ian's superior officer ('D' Company Commander) Major W.B. Johnstone to Ian's guardian Major Farquhar Young:

"I only took over this company a few days before Iain [Ian] died but in those few days I learned what a grand Officer and leader he was. I was truly sorry to lose him, as you know, it is always the best officers who go... 

We were attacking a position on the Siegfried line [Ger. Westwall] South of Goch on the night of Sunday the 25th when he was killed. His platoon objective was a farm building... the 'farmhouse' turned out to be a carefully disguised concrete 'Pill-box'...

His actions up till then had won high praise from everyone who saw him in the fighting in and around Goch. His previous Company Commander Major Brodie who was wounded in one of these actions said how well Iain [Ian] had done in a letter to the C.O. [Commanding Officer] His men thought him a grand officer...I cannot hope to replace him, as officers of his calibre are few and far between in the sixth year of war.

He is buried with the other officer and the men who died with him in that action, in a quiet little orchard near to the scene of their gallant fight. The territory is firmly in our hands and his grave will be carefully tended until it is removed to an official War Cemetery in the area...

I hope some day when this rotten business is over I will meet you or his people and be able to tell you personally how gallantly Iain [Ian] died." 

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Lt. Ian MacDonald is mentioned on p. 171 of John McGregor, The Spirit of Angus: The War History of the County's Battalion of the Black Watch, Chichester, Sussex: Phillimore, 1988. (The 5th Battalion was the County of Angus batallion.)

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Comments by the Editor
 

I have known for a while and in some detail (thanks to my grandfather's handwritten account) the personal life story of my uncle Ian Lester MacDonald, born at 9 Grosvenor Crescent in Edinburgh on April 6, 1923 who grew up in Chile and Scotland and died in action south of Goch near the Dutch border in western Germany on February 25, 1945 leading his platoon (no. 18) of the fifth battalion of the Black Watch (51st Highland Division). However I only discovered recently that he was part of Operation VERITABLE, a Canadian-British push from the Netherlands into Germany. It started on February 8, 1945 and ended on March 10th.

   Operation VERITABLE tends to have been ignored by historians until recently in favour of the earlier Operation MARKET GARDEN which was a failure. (Naturally glorious and spectacular failures and the reasons for them attract more interest from movie makers, historians and military strategists who seek to learn from the mistakes.) VERITABLE was the left side of a pincer movement, the right side being the American Operation GRENADE which was delayed by German blocking actions on the border (the River Roer in Dutch, G: Rur, F: Rour. Not to be confused with the German rivers Ruhr or Röhr!)

   Operation VERITABLE presented various challenges, not the least of which was that it was very hard fighting against a foe who, albeit weakened from full strength, was for the first time in the war defending his home soil. The battlefront was narrow (some 8 km) and the weather was poor with mud from rain and the winter thaw slowing the advance of tanks, mechanized vehicles and infantry.

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Click on the map for Canadian army official history!

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The northern (Canadian) flank was flooded deliberately by the enemy, the centre was made up of the awkward Reichswald forest (part of the Siegfried Line) and there was urban fighting at Kleve and Goch. The Steintor medieval gate in Goch was saved from demolition by a British officer (Major Ronald E. Balfour, the Monument Man) who persuaded commanders on the spot to clear a road round it rather than blow it up, and so it survives to this day.

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Thomashof near Goch (Google Maps)

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"The next objective was Goch, ‘bastion town of the Siegfried Line’, the attack on which began in the early hours of 19 February. ‘We had to capture some houses on the outskirts, then, Company by Company,’ related Captain Alec Brodie, who had succeeded Beales in command of D Company, ‘the whole Battalion passed by, each capturing a bit of the town and letting the next one come through it and capture a bit further on. We took our first bit without firing a shot, and even got a bridge on our left, which everybody thought would have been strongly guarded, and some Boche in a pill box. It was a very dark misty night, and there was a terrific bombardment before we started, so the Boche were rather dazed.’"　Schofield, Victoria. The Black Watch: Fighting in the Frontline 1899-2006 . Head of Zeus, 2017. Kindle Edition. （Reichswald and Goch are battle honours of the regiment.）

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Concluding Operations (Reichswald, 24-27 February 1945) 

Tim Saunders, Breaking the Siegfried Line: Rhineland, February 1945 (Pen and Sword Military, January 2024) 

The 51st Highland Division in World War Two

The attack on Goch is described in detail in this video. Goch became a standard British army case study for Fighting In Built Up Areas (FIBUA). The 5th Battalion Black Watch (Major G. Pilcher, commander of C Company) appears after 13 minutes in the video. Goch is an ancient town with much history and looks like a pleasant place to live and visit now. 

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There was also fighting at many farmhouses and farm buildings, some of which were concealed pillboxes. This was the case at the Thomashof/Robbenhof farm south of Goch where my uncle and several of his platoon died.

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Map of 5th Battalion Black Watch operations at the Battle of Goch from John McGregor, The Spirit of Angus, p. 172. 

 

There is a second reference to my uncle on p. 175 of the book as follows:

"Division sent a Warning Order to the Battalion early on the 25th, detailing a plan for a night attack South-West from Thomashof. The purpose was to clear the ground of the enemy right down to the river [apparently the River Kendel]. The attack was part of a co-ordinated Divisional operation.

The Battalion moved to the Assembly Area and crossed the Start Line at 21 10 hours moving quickly behind the barrage. 'C' Company on the Right, 'B' Company on the Left. As the barrage lifted they raced on to their water-logged objectives, capturing 12 prisoners. They still had trouble from a Spandau post and Lt Dick Stewart, Canadian OC of 14 Platoon, was killed leading the attack which successfully dealt with the post. 

'A' Company passed through 'B' Company and attacked towards Robbenhof and 'D' Company moved towards the farm buildings on the left of 'A' Company, where they had a lot of trouble from a German pill-box which was disguised as a barn. Sergeant Maxie MM [Military Medal] and his Platoon were given the task of clearing three small cottages near the river..."

After clearing the cottages Maxie "...realised that the Platoon on his Left was in trouble and he went over to find that the Platoon Commander, Lieut Ian MacDonald had been killed, so he took charge. The enemy was in a very strong pill-box which defied Piat bombs, so Sergeant Maxie charged the doorway alone, killed one man in the doorway, and threw a smoke grenade inside which resulted in the other occupants surrendering immediately. Much of the success of the 'D' Company attack was due to Sergeant Maxie's dash and leadership, but sadly they lost CSM Delves and Corporal McGubbin among their casualties."     

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My uncle and others were initially buried at the orchard near the battle, but he is now buried at plot 12.E.20 in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Rheinberg, Germany which I visited once in the 1980s. It is about 30 minutes by car from Goch, which I have not yet visited. (All of the Canadians were buried at Grosbeek cemetery in the Netherlands by order of their commander General Harry Crerar.)

   There is a vast German war cemetery with over 31,000 graves at Ysselsteyn in the Netherlands, about 50 minutes by car from the CWGC cemetery at Rheinberg in Germany. It is the only German war cemetery in the Netherlands. War is a scourge of mankind which brings death and suffering to the people of all nations, both victors and vanquished. And tragically it has recently returned to the continent of Europe. Ironically President Zelensky announced a few days ago that Ukraine's casualties since the start of the war with Russia two years ago now amount to 31,000 killed in action. ("What is going to be the end of it all?")

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Ian C. Ruxton

Professor emeritus (English),

Kyushu Institute of Technology

Japan

 

February 27, 2024